A new report from the Minnesota Department of Health confirms what we've been saying all along in this health reform debate: the status quo is not an option.

The report found that more than 100,000 Minnesotans lost their health insurance between 2007 and 2009, largely due to the bad econom, raising the total of uninsured Minnesotans from 374,000 to 480,000 -- 85,000 of those being children under the age of 17.

The survey found that some groups were hit harder than others. More men than women lost their employer-sponsored insurance as sectors that traditionally hire men -- manufacturing and construction, for example -- were hit hard by the recession. Some 12 percent of male Minnesotans were uninsured last year, compared to 6 percent of females.

Young adults were also far more likely to be uninsured, as were minorities.

Equally worrying was the finding that more people were going without insurance for long periods. Researchers asked respondents if they had been continuously uninsured for the past 12 months; 6.2 percent said yes, up from 4.6 percent when that question was asked in 2007.

So not only are more people uninsured, but they're staying uninsured for longer.

Under the current proposal for health insurance reform being debated in Congress, 519,000 Minnesota residents who currently don't have insurance -- and 356,000 residence who have nongroup insurance -- could get affordable coverage through the health insurance exchange.  An additional 282,000 residents could qualify for premium tax credits to help them purchase health coverage.

Note: This post originally appeared on the ABM blog on Feb 08, 2010.

I'll hand it to the Minnesota GOP. The conservatives that run the shop over there have come up with some pretty goofy games in the past--putting an asterisk behind an elected senator's name.. HILARIOUS-- but this one is just the tops. Seriously. This whole thing with the $2,500 to stand in line for "Obama Care" is a nice visual, the cameras love it, and whew, it's a laugh riot. I'm going to run down to the people who just got kicked off of GAMC and tell them about it, they'll totally love it.

Over at MNPublius, Jeff Rosenberg also noted this little stunt, and how much money the MNGOP is throwing at it, which got me thinking. In the grand scheme of health care, is $2,500 for a publicity stunt really that much money? What else is going on in the health care scene while the Republican's are busy playing little games for the press?

First, lets see how much money the insurance companies have spent lobbying Congress to block real reform. From the Washington Post, we get that the insurance companies are spending about $1.4 million a day lobbying. Take that multiplied by the two days that folks have been participating in this media stunt, and you get $2.8 million spent blocking the reform that American's want (health care question is #23).

Next, lets take a look at insurance company profits. Looking at the top five insurance companies alone--UnitedHealth Group, WellPoint, Aetna, Humana, and Cigna--the profits from their Fortune 500 profiles comes to $7,790,800,000 for the year. Back to the MS Paint math board:

That's over $42 million in profits for only the top five insurance companies during the two days the GOP has been putting on plays for the media.

Finally, lets look at how many people have lost their insurance during the GOP's little game thus far. I mean the insurance companies are making boat loads of cash and spending it like crazy on lobbying, people shouldn't be losing their coverage then, right? Unless they're in the business of denying people coverage to lower their costs, this should be straight forward, right? The current system is the best in the world, right?

But...from the Center for American Progress' study on the rate of people losing insurance from earlier this year, we know that up to 14,000 people per day are losing their insurance. The study was fact-checked by Politifact, and they actually say the number is a little low, but with COBRA being extended through the stimulus... we'll stay on the safe side and go with the low number. Anyway, take that rate times the two days the "contest" has been running so far and we have 28,000 people who have lost their health insurance during the Minnesota GOP's media stunt. 28,000 people is the city of Brooklyn Center, losing it's health insurance.

With the $2,500 that the Minnesota Republican Party is using to get a newstory, they could give the newly uninsured around 9 cents each. Now that's a start to some compassionate conservatism.

Folks, the current state of health care is a lot scarier than any media stunt that the Minnesota GOP can think of. The $2,500 they are offering wouldn't even cover the out of pocket costs of a family of four for 1 month if we continue on the path that we're on. The real crisis is the status quo. The crisis is insurance companies protecting their bottom line by denying people the coverage that they need. The crisis is politicians that have raked in the money from insurance lobbyists using scare tactics and lies to demand that any real reform by crushed. The crisis is happening right now, and only an option provided by the American people can bring choice and competition back to this broken industry. We need real reform, but I guess the Minnesota GOP thought we just needed more political theater. I'll keep a running total of these numbers during the contest so the Minnesota GOP can see what working families were dealing with while they were busy trying to score political points.